Reducing Membrane Fouling During Microalgae Filtration Using a Uniform Shearing Vibration Membrane with Intermittent Operation

Uniform shearing vibration membranes (USVMs) represent a new technology that can effectively control membrane fouling. Intermittent operation with a USVM can further reduce both reversible and irreversible fouling. At the same ratio of filtration time to relaxation time, more frequent relaxation intervals can lead to better processing results. This approach can mitigate concentration polarization, resulting in less membrane fouling. Compared with continuous filtration, the membrane's reversible and irreversible fouling rates were reduced by 43.7% and 33.3%, respectively, for the group with filtration for 9 minutes with a 1-minute relaxation interval, which showed the lowest amount of fouling among the three groups. In addition, membrane-attached algal cells, proteins, polysaccharides, and humic acids decreased with increasing relaxation intervals for both reversibly and irreversibly attached extracellular organic matter (EOM).